


White Owls

by piecesofalice



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:57:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/pseuds/piecesofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not even a full page in the script.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Owls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ButchieMcGee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButchieMcGee/gifts), [sajee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sajee/gifts).



_What's it to you  
That we're world's apart?_   
Bertie Blackman, 'Come to Bed'

 

\---

It's not even a page. One quarter, maybe; a block of text in a word processed font that makes it look like it's typewritten. The page is smooth, however, without the inky mess of typewriter ink staining the paper in thumb-printed Rorschach patterns.

 

 _It won't leave a mess,_ he thinks.

 

 _It probably won't even be in the film,_ says the director.

 

_We'll do it, just in case._

 

Her hands are tiny, tipped in a colour made for a French woman.

 

 _You're doing this to drive him nuts,_ adds the director, his voice muffled as it comes at them from behind the camera. _It's to throw him off his game._

 

His are large, pressed against her ribcage as they both try not to breathe.

 

_She's bleeding through._

 

And their faces brush as the film clacks and they aim for something that will end on the cutting room floor.

 

\---

 

He dreams of her, because it's exactly what he deserves.

 

He dreams of her, splayed, panting, holding, howling - his thumbs across her skin in the best and worst of places, her mouth against every part of him he worked to keep secret.

 

He dreams of her, all soft curls and curves and cuts, an element of a whole and he can't breathe.

 

He wakes, and wonders if he will ever sleep again.

 

\---

 

"I'm older than you," he jokes, leaning against the doorframe of his trailer. She's brought him a plate of sandwiches because he'd complained of being tired earlier, and had skipped lunch in favour of a nap that had been his way of avoiding her all together.

 

"Ah, but I'm a woman," she grins, slyly. "Aren't women meant to be the providers?"

 

And it's because she's layered it with incomprehensible meanings he understands it completely.

 

\---

 

They've got significant others. A wife, a boyfriend - she tells him about the men before as they wait on set and he tries to stare a hole in the ground.

 

"He was Canadian. A musician. He liked red wine, and music you could get lost to."

 

"What happened to him?" he finds himself asking, and she smiles. All teeth, and he imagines her beside him in a world that neither of them were ever going to be a part of.

 

"He became sober. Bought a farm, got the girl." Lighting a cigarette, she sighs, causing the smoke out in a haze of chemicals and regrets. "We're still friends."

 

"Was it too domestic for you?" And it's his way of making a joke, but she frowns.

 

"It was too dangerous," and they get called back to set, back to reality, and it's a moment of absolute relief.

 

\---

 

"Do you want to sleep with me?"

 

And he does, and they do.

 

\---

 

Porcelain plates with room service and the dense scent of the aftershave he'd been wearing so long, he'd forgotten the name of it, mixed with something heady and feminine from Dior.

 

 _Your wife remembers the name,_ and he kisses the woman in front of him instead of calling home, scratching her face red with his two-day growth.

 

It's almost an optical illusion. The sheets are off-white and she almost blends in, her colour going from _brown - white - red - white - brown - white_ like a disjointed colour wheel. She crawls on top of him and presses her cheek against his, their bodies moving together in a movement that's almost poetic.

He feels old. Their tongues trip over English and the occasional Japanese and French. Their tongues trip over teeth and skin and human lines, over the blurred edges of yesterday's rough night and today's perfect guilt.

_"Is it a dream?" and her eyes are blue._

His wife's are brown, and he closes his own to keep the headache at bay.

_\---_

"The French like to have affairs," Leo smiles, lighting a smoke. 

"You can't smoke in here," he answers, and leaves the room and a thousand other things behind him.

_\---_

"I'm coming to Osaka," she hums down the line.

He regrets picking up the phone.

He regrets picking her up from the airport./p>

He regrets her body against his.

He regrets Nolan choosing him, pushing him to try Saito on for size.

She regrets nothing, and tells him this as they go down, down again.

_\---_

She dreams of him, and she tells him this as they're in front of a hundred thousand cameras with everything to hide. _You were holding my hand under the cherry blossoms. What a cliche!_ and he can't help the smile picking up the side of his lips.

 

"We're on the cutting room floor," he answers, and she clutches his arm in a show of open solidarity for their very private moment.

 

It's something to believe in, as they turn to the cameras and smile once more.

 

\---

 

_Fin._

 

\---


End file.
